Cappadonna — Eyrth, Wynd & Fyre

Many of the best hip-hop artists have tried to release a double disc over the course of their careers: 2Pac, Biggie, Nas, Jay-Z, Scarface, Outkast, Eightball, Cypress Hill, Master P, UGK, and many more. The double album by Mobb Deep is one of the most underrated in the 2010s, also because it's a sort of compilation combined with remixes of classic cuts. And E-40, the Bay Area veteran, has built an entire career on double and even triple discs. As the second album in their history, even what is considered by many to be the best hip-hop group ever, has released a double album: "Wu-Tang Forever", where Cappadonna is still an external member of the Clan, although a close collaborator, and is the main guest of the project, managing to ruin whatever he touches, like a reversed King Midas: "Maria" is the worst song of the edition, and in the history of the Wu-Tang Clan up to that point,, "For Heaven Sake" and "Heaterz" maybe without his touch they would be «pure» classics, while on "Little Ghetto Boys" he doesn't do too much damage, the track wasn't a classic. Only "Triumph" is saved in some way.

Sixteen years later, Cappadonna has been officially in the Wu-Tang Clan for a few years, when he decides his studio album number seven will be an 85-minute, 28-track double disc. Audiences and critics don't take this decision very well: in particular, professional reviewers decide that after this stupid joke they will never write about any of his other albums in the future. It's a drastic, severe, but right choice. For this effort, Cappadonna turns out to be an enemy of vowels and places a random «y» in place of the «a» and «i» in the title: if it's not a tribute to "Family Guy", I just don't get it. In any case, the first CD is bland, full of personal songs and socio-conscious attempts interspersed with annoying fillers: the production is entrusted exclusively to Josh "J-Glaze" Glazer, a Staten Island producer friend of the MC, who tries to imitate the typical sounds of Wu-Tang. The exception to the rule is "Back to School", a track produced by Whaul, whose information is limited. "Real Life" is the first track of this very long double disc: boom bap jazzy alternative, mediocre poor banal simplistic, I suggest that it would be perfect for M.O.P., but not for Cappa, who delivers calmly in a song that must be performed with yelled-hardcore style, with aggression and arrogance. On the second track, the rapper is still unfit on a lean boom bap, while the next one has a bad jazzy rhythm. In "Hustle Game Tight", Glazer provides a decent rhythm finally, it sounds dark, tense and a bit mafia, Cappa is much better here.

Unfortunately, the record immediately confirms its deeply irregular nature with the arrival of the fifth piece: poor, cheap and simplistic alternative beat, the rapper wants to get rid of it immediately and deliver faster than usual. "Pull Ya Life Together" has one of the best rhythms of this double edition: splendid jazzy vibes, hardcore delivery by Cappa, in one of his most successful tracks. Piano scales arrive to help the performer in "Puffed on Pride", another production that sounds mafia, jazzy and light; even "Creature Feature" has similar vibes, the rapper doesn't do too much damage. Show Stopper is the first guest and arrives at choice number nine, after half an hour: boom bap very tense and gloomy, the guest boy plays well, even without saying anything. "Rap Is Like Crack" features the first, only and last rapper closest to the Wu-Tang Clan in this edition, Solomon Childs of Theodore Unit: on a skeletal and cheap boom bap, the two MCs spit worthily, but even here they don't say nothing.

J-Glaze continues to deliver pretty bad sounds on this first LP, creating a poor, cheap, alternative production that never works and never fits with the rapper's delivery: Cappadonna delivers for nearly five minutes in the eleventh choice, technically painful. The producer Whaul can prove that he's a better beatmaker than the previous one with only one guessed rhythm, but his choice is exactly simplistic like all the others, despite a good bridge on the hook. Cappa understands that with this record he'll not go anywhere and gives up, with a subdued delivery. In "Children of Israel" he seems inspired again, don't be fooled by the title, heavy lyrics aren't there and never were in [most of] his discography, here Glazer signs a jazzy boom bap that seems almost thought, decent; trivial hook and good delivery of the rapper along with Show Stopper. This dude is the main guest of the first record, also being present in the final cut, on a skeletal and light alternative jazzy rhythm

The second album, titled "Love, Anger and Emotion", is based on hardcore and thug songs, with the usual controversial fillers, and is produced by several underground and unknown producers. The whole first section is composed by his brother Lounge Mode, who automatically becomes the main guest of the double disc, which dominates with purely mediocre and weak performances, and by Sav Killz: both have the task of helping the Wu rapper, but they only end up hindering him. This second CD is at least as tasteless as the previous one, and it's equally irregular.

"Free Lunch" opens the second record: alternative soulful boom bap made by Keelay & Zaire, simplistic and weak rhythm, Cappadonna offers a decent proof, his brother Lounge Mode is one step below. Similar speech for the following cut, again with his brother, on a discreet beat by Cosmos Shines. There's Sav Killz in the guest role on "Welfare", the bouncy and weak production chosen by Chris Bay doesn't help the performers, Cappadonna starts to sound worse than usual and Sav Killz is very mediocre. At the fourth track, Lounge Mode returns, subdued and with a slow and light-hearted style on a decent rhythm offered by DJ Snips, a guy who also produces the following choice: Cappa keeps spitting bars, but he can't save any of these songs, there it's still Sav Killz, and he doesn't impress. "Rep Ya Borough" sees a rare decent production, soulful boom bap of Kevlaar 7: the name tells me I've seen this dude somewhere before, he should be a Killa Bee somehow, and, in fact, he's Bronze Nazareth's brother and member of the Wisemen.

His beat is wasted by Lounge Mode and Cappadonna, marked by a really bad hook starred by an uninspired Cappachino. "Live Ya Life" sounds better, second beat by Cosmos Shines, decent, good performance by the two brothers, in one of the best cuts of the tape. Stu Bangas produces "Chains" and delivers the worst beat of the whole double record, it's grossly ugly and the rapper's delivery doesn't help. It precedes the last featuring in this odyssey: it's still Lounge Mode, on an accessible but bad beat by Keelay & Zaire. Kevlaar 7 returns in "It's a Man's World", with another decent soul sample looped in the background, Cap is running out of energy at this point. About 12 minutes at the end, but it's like 35: Keelay & Zaire throw two more beats in a row, both horrible and cheap, the rapper is off in "Baby Mommas" and energetic in "Ease on Down the Road", but he always sounds bad, without improving in the next cut, on an accessible rhythm by Stu Bangas with chipmunk soul sample. G-Force produces the last four minutes, Cappadonna digs the bottom of the barrel, to spit his last words with a hardcore style on a slowed beat.

During this hour and twenty-five minutes, Darryl Hill a/k/a Cappadonna, spits on twenty different topics, without ever seriously and decently delving into any of them: his pen is without ink, his lyricism is limited, he always goes out of time, but I don't think that he do it on purpose, don't be mad. He's not one of the most skilled rappers, from a technical point of view he's like a southern rapper born on the East Coast. All the beats go against him and he goes against all the beats, two chaotic and bad records come out: on these awful rhythms, he finds himself unfit 95% of the time, and even when he sings the results are ridiculous. What looks like a long grueling mixtape, has the distinction of being devoid of Wu-Tang guests, plus, at the time, it's one of the worst double records in hip-hop. Released by independent label RBC Records and Iron Chambers Entertainment, the album is spared by professional critics, who don't give it any low ratings, but won't spend time and energy in any of his works from now on.

Rating: 3.5/10.